


HeartLess

by HestiaSeshat



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-The Final Problem, Serial Killer Sherlock, Sherlock Series 4 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 17:57:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9503363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HestiaSeshat/pseuds/HestiaSeshat
Summary: Post TFP. Molly discovers that something has changed following THE PHONE CALL.Inspired by Moffat's ridiculous assertion in the press that Molly " gets over it.....surely at a certain point you have to figure out that after Sherlock escapes he tells her " I'm really sorry about that, it was a code, I thought your flat was about to blow up ".And then she says " Oh well that's ok then you bastard" and then they go back to normal , that's what people do.....she probably had a drink and shagged someone, I dunno. Molly was fine."





	

He’d hung up. Before even the last syllable of her confession had escaped her lips the connection between them had been severed. Looking back she wasn’t sure how long she stood staring at the phone in her hand as the shock took hold, but she remembered the feeling of weakness as her legs buckled beneath her and she sank down onto the kitchen floor. She remembered the sobs that emanated from somewhere deep inside as her whole body shook and she remembered that no matter how hard she tried to catch her breath, how hard she tried to pull herself together, it seemed as if those tears would never stop…

*********************************************************************************

It was the sound of her cat that woke her up sometime later. Her emotional distress had taken so deep a hold of her that she had fallen asleep in complete and utter exhaustion on the kitchen floor. She knew instantly something was wrong….

Standing on shaky legs she looked round her kitchen, her phone still lay on the countertop where she’d dropped it, the items for tea ready and waiting, but still she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was definitely wrong.

She walked slowly around her flat, nothing was broken and everything was in its place. She couldn’t put her finger on it, something was different, and something had definitely changed. It was when she reached the bathroom that she finally put the pieces together, as she stared absentmindedly at her reflection in the mirror she had almost missed it at first, but now it was so obvious she was bemused she hadn’t realised what had happened to her straightaway. 

Something HAD changed, something WAS different… something HAD been taken, something WAS missing, as clear as day, as if she could see the surgical incision lines , she knew that she no longer had a heart.

**********************************************************************************

It was surprisingly easy to function without a heart. At work she had reached peak efficiency, she had always been organised and methodical but without emotions to slow her down she had reached new heights. She had lost those 3 pounds she was always complaining about, without a heart and only a purely logical mind it had been a simple thing to do her normal workout and NOT reward herself with a coffee and doughnut afterwards, to eat only what was needed to fuel her body rather than for pleasure. Her flat was gleaming and streamlined, no longer cluttered with possessions she didn’t want but couldn’t bear to part with. All in all she was rather satisfied with her change, and if her colleagues saw the change in her then she simply told them about the first phone call, not the second one, not the one from Sherlock, but the first phone call and that was enough to satisfy a curious or worried mind.

It was nearly a week after the phone call that Sherlock came to visit her. When she opened the door she experienced a feeling of déjà vu, something was wrong, something was different, and something had definitely changed. She watched Sherlock curiously, assessing, observing as he stumbled through a garbled explanation, about a secret sister, a series of tests, her coffin and a bomb threat that never was “I’m really sorry about that, it was a code, I thought your flat was about to blow up”. 

She thought about it a bit, called him a bastard, but then offered her sincere forgiveness and understanding and made him a cup of tea. After all that was what rational normal people did, and logically she knew there was nothing to forgive when he had been trying to save her life. She passed the cup of tea to him, and watched as he took it from her a slight tremor in his hand, and a look that was a strange mixture of regret, hope and worry, and that was when she had her second epiphany. 

With immaculate skill and precision Euros has performed long distance surgery. Without anaesthetic, she had ripped out Molly’s heart and given it to her brother. Perhaps it was form of atonement for removing Sherlock’s heart all those years ago in her unsolved game with Victor (Redbeard) or perhaps it was simply a form of punishment, whatever the reason Molly knew that her heart now resided in Sherlock’s chest. As she watched as he twitched and stumbled through another tortured apology she knew with certainty that she had gotten the better end of the deal.

**********************************************************************************

It was a few hours after Sherlock had left before she realised he had never asked her why she had been having a bad day, why she had been already upset before the phone call had taken place. She realised he might have her heart now but he was still only a beginner, learning how to drive it. Still the thought reminded her that she had a decision to make, the vet had warned her over the phone that her cat would only get worse, that the test results were conclusive, that he was already in pain and it would be a kindness to “ send him to sleep “ so he could “no longer suffer”.

She sat for a while running her fingers through his soft fur, and then a little while later started pulling items out from under her bed, finding a treasure chest of sorts from her childhood that was currently housing some paperwork. Yes it would be perfect she thought, and she looked back to the sofa where her cat lay in perfect peace and stillness, his neck snapped in brutal efficiency.

**********************************************************************************

She didn’t see Sherlock for another two weeks. He arrived at St Barts with John in tow, and a coffee in his hand for her. Both men had approached her as if approaching a wounded animal, hesitant, unsure, a little scared of the reaction they would get and with soft apologies, “sorry for your loss” for her cat. She was pleased with how normal she acted around them, how easy it was to reassure them that she was fine. The only obvious change was in her professionalism, as she worked with the new brutal efficiency which had become the norm for her during the last three weeks. She caught admiring glances from Sherlock when for the first time she spotted something that he had missed. Sherlock hung around longer than necessary, and it looked as if he was waiting for the right time to ask her something, but the moment never came as a call from Lestrade had them both running out the door.

She often thought about that day and subsequent night. She didn’t remember consciously planning what was to come, it was almost as if it had happened by instinct. She had left work not long after Sherlock and John had left, and went shopping for a dress that she would never have had the confidence to wear before her change, and also found a very realistic short bob wig. 

Two hours later she found herself in one of those clubs that literally screamed desperation, what her friends had referred to as a “meat market”. Everywhere she looked people were having a good time, laughing and smiling, making emotional connections. 

But if you scratched the surface you could see the heartbreak, the ones whose smiles didn’t quite meet their eyes, whose laugh was just a little too loud, a little too forced.  
A man caught her eye, he told her his name was Chris and a couple of drinks later she had discovered his entire life story. Chris was heartbroken, his girlfriend of 7 years had been offered the job of a lifetime in Canada, and she had taken it, telling him that long distance relationships never worked. She nodded, and smiled and sympathised as appropriate during his tale, she might no longer have a heart, but she had spent the last 37 years of her life using one, so she knew without thinking what the old Molly would have said, how she would have consoled and comforted. She put all that knowledge to good use for he was perfect.

**********************************************************************************

Sometime later, against a brick wall, Chris pounded all of that sadness, all that grief, all that anger into her willing body. She idly wished he would hurry up, part of the wall was sticking uncomfortably into her back, and her stocking had a new tear in it so would need to be replaced, still she kept focused watching, waiting, and at the final moment of Chris’s release she reached up and placed her hand over his heart.

*********************************************************************************  
She met Chris again a day later.

She hadn’t really noticed that his curly hair was the exact shade of Sherlock’s until she had him on her slab.

She worked methodically and cleanly, being a pathologist had already ensured that she had left very little evidence or trace of what she had done to his body. The needle she had stabbed into his heart at the moment of release, was so fine that it has barely left a mark, the large needle mark where she had injected a second substance into his still warm body only 5 mins afterwards was on the other hand glaringly obvious. Still as she made her Y shape incision she was glad that her job gave her a second opportunity to double check and ensure that Chris’s death would simply look like a heart attack bought on by taking the latest drug doing the club circuit.

It was only when she was closing him up with methodical neat stitches that she realised something HAD changed, something WAS different… something HAD been taken, something WAS missing

It hadn’t been planned, it wasn’t her intention, but nobody would notice the heart that was now kept neatly in her lunchbox waiting to be taken home with her.

**********************************************************************************

A month and ½ later she had her third and final epiphany since the phone call. She was heading to a fully repaired Baker Street, and to the small party that John and Sherlock were hosting to celebrate the fact. 

As she walked she thought again about John’s blog. He had recently posted an article on Moriaty, a recap of sorts, about his need to be noticed, to be seen, for people, for Sherlock to truly understand how clever he was, and this arrogance in seeking out Sherlock, had been his biggest downfall. 

There would be no such article written for her, she was not important enough to be noticed, she didn’t matter enough for someone to try to understand her, even with her heart in his chest Sherlock still didn’t “see her”. Her one crime hadn’t been detected by a simple look from Sherlock when he had visited her only hours after she had finished putting Chris’ body in the locker.

And that was when it hit her, the books/blogs only wrote about the ones who were caught, they never wrote about the serial killers or the murders which go unnoticed. She wondered how long she could go unnoticed, unseen, uncounted, how many hearts could she take before Sherlock realised what was happening right under his nose.  
Oh she would have to be clever, too many, too fast and she would call attention to herself even if the deaths looked natural, to few, too slow and she would miss her chance to truly impress. Although she would never know the total number of deaths Moriaty had caused, she knew that she needed to top at least 300 to be within any chance of beating Luis Garvito’s score.

Oh this was simply delicious, she couldn’t wait, a chance to play the game with the world’s most famous consulting detective, a game he wasn’t even aware he was playing in, with a nemesis he didn’t even realise he was looking at.

For the first time since her heart was taken she felt something akin to emotion flicker through her, it wasn’t something she had ever felt before so she couldn’t find a name for it, but she did know her whole body simply vibrated with a new pulsating energy, she ran up the stairs and opened the door to where the party was already gathered, the rapturous ecstasy apparent, as her face broke into a broad smile ….”Oh yes Sherlock” she thought “the game is on “.

**********************************************************************************  
Epilogue

The retirement party was in full swing. Sherlock, John and Rosie stood to one side talking earnestly with some detectives from New Scotland Yard. She felt a passing regret that Lestrade and Mrs Hudson were no longer with them to witness the ending to the greatest game of all.

And it was the end of the game. She was slower now, her back ached all the time whether it was from bending over a body, or bending over to look into a microscope. Her career as a pathologist had come to its natural conclusion, and with it so too did her second career, the risk of continuing to great without the ability to cover her tracks.  
She slowly sipped her glass of champagne, listening to her replacement wax lyrical about the Hooper Anti-Apopliprotein test she had invented that was now standard in all pathology labs, but her mind wandered randomly, indulging in nostalgic musings about the circumstances that had bought her here. 

Could thing have gone differently? If Mrs Hudson had been told about the phone call, if Mary had been alive; they would have seen, would have understood instantly that was not possible for Molly to have been flayed alive, to have her heart torn out of her chest without consequences.

But there were no women to understand Molly’s devastation, instead only three men had witnessed her vivisection, she hadn’t stood a chance.

John was understandably still too wrapped up in his own grief, while Sherlock and Mycroft…..well they had both matured and developed their sensitivity muscles as a direct result of that day, that phone call, but the truth was that no matter how clever Sherlock was, no matter how much he now embraced emotional context, he still didn’t have the faintest clue about how a woman’s mind, heart or soul worked. That he actually thought that she could just get over it, go back to normal, that she could shrug it off with a drink and a shag in a nightclub with a stranger and be fine… if she didn’t know better she would assume he was still a high functioning sociopath, as certainly no normal human could ever believe that of her, knowing her, who she was, what she stood for.

She had worried sometimes, if her game would end prematurely without resolution. Over the years Sherlock came close to death on more than one occasion, but he always had John, Lestrade or Mycroft to back him up. She only had to intervene once, and tellingly once again his foe was a woman. 

Molly had taken one look at the body on the slab and instantly worked out that Ms Dorran was the obvious culprit. She realised with detached astonishment, while listening to John and Sherlock talk, that it was only obvious to her, she who understood better than anyone else the things that drove a wounded woman’s emotional context. John who normally understood women better would have picked up on it but he had been blinded by Ms Dorrans pretty smile and sweet nature. She watched them stumble around in the dark for a few days, and carefully monitored Ms Dorran. When it became blindingly obvious that their lack of insight could get them killed she had carefully and swiftly added Ms Dorran to her collection. She was the only female heart in her set, and so she had created an extra special box, which took pride of place in the hidden room she had created at the back of her ordinary town house.

She sometimes wondered if she wasn’t part of a bigger game. If her change was nothing more than expert manipulation, a piece on the chess board. John had once mentioned that Euros had the ability to re-programme anybody who spoke to her in only 5 minutes. But what if she could do it quicker than that, what if Euros didn’t even need to be the one to say the words, what if she only needed a code to be spoken and the right emotional context for reprogramming to take place. 

Had Euros created her specifically for Sherlock? 

Had Euros found Moriaty so lacking, so absurd in his willingness to die to defeat Sherlock, that she had realised that she would have to create a true nemesis for him from scratch. That thought did sometimes keep her awake at night, before one day she realised it didn’t really matter, she wouldn’t have it any other way, as John would say “it is what it is”.

The party was drawing to a close, and she did the rounds, kissing and hugging, and promising to keep in touch. She’d already made plans to see Sherlock in two weeks’ time. He had invited her down to his small farm on the Sussex downs which he had bought when he had retired a few months earlier. He had already made great strides in his research on colony collapse disorder which had been devastating the UK bee population and he was eager to share his findings.

She too was eager. The world’s only consulting detective deserved to go out in a blaze of glory, in the greatest game of wits and skill, not quietly beekeeping in the English countryside. She had planned it carefully, down to the last detail, a series of tests not dissimilar to the ones that he had encountered on the day of her change. It was a shame that she had had to include John, she really truly did care for him in a detached kind of way, but her tests wasn’t meaningful unless it provided emotional context. Her one concession to their years of friendship was she had left Rosie out of the game, after all she was also her godmother.

Yes she mused the tests had been created perfectly, down to the final moment when she would reveal the truth, when he would see her for who she really was, his one true nemesis. A Woman. A Woman without a heart.

She was sad that she couldn’t bring her collection with her to show him, but the truth was she had simply been too successful, too unnoticed, there were just too many of them to move, so she would have to settle for showing him photos. She couldn’t wait to see the surprise on his face when he saw her final number, which reminded her she had to do a stock check, she had stopped counting once she got past 500 so she wasn’t entirely sure what her final tally was.

But the one moment she was truly looking forward to, the one she had played the long game for, was that final moment, the final great moment, when she would reach deep into his chest and take back her heart.

**Author's Note:**

> TFP devastated me, I thought the phone call scene was one of the most beautifully written and acted things I had ever seen on TV, so I was a little disconcerted when nothing was resolved and we just saw Molly running through the door smiling in the montage. However I entered a blind rage when I read Moffat's comments that " she gets over it.....surely at a certain point you have to figure out that after Sherlock escapes he tells her " I'm really sorry about that, it was a code, I thought your flat was about to blow up ".And then she says " Oh well that's ok then you bastard" and then they go back to normal , that's what people do.....she probably had a drink and shagged someone, I dunno. Molly was fine."
> 
> But then I thought if that is officially cannon, how would that look....how could any writer even make that happen, incorporate those phrases/scenes...knowing what we know about Molly's character. This is my attempt to write it in a way it could make sense, this is the first thing I have ever written for Sherlock and it is unbeta'd....but I was just so angry that this idea wouldn't leave me alone...not sure if I will ever write anything again, but would love some constructive criticism just in case I get the bug...


End file.
